Trump asked to testify in Bergdahl case

A lawyer for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl sent a letter Saturday to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump asking him to give a deposition before a trial begins this summer.

The request takes aim at a chief issue for Bergdahl - obtaining a fair trial in the wake of highly negative publicity that has surrounded him since his release from Afghanistan.

Trump has denounced the former prisoner of war, who is accused of deserting his post in Afghanistan in 2009 and misbehavior before the enemy. In one speech last fall, Trump said Bergdahl was "a no-good traitor" who would have been shot 30 years ago.

"I request to interview you as soon as possible about your comments about Sergeant Bergdahl during frequent appearances in front of large audiences in advance of his court-martial," Army Lt. Col. Franklin Rosenblatt wrote in a letter sent to Trump's New York office.

Bergdahl's defense team, led by Yale Law School lecturer Eugene Fidell, has repeatedly argued that Trump and other politicians, as well as widespread publicity surrounding the case, have imperiled their client's right to a fair trial.

The stakes are high. If convicted of misbehavior before the enemy, Bergdahl, who has worked at a desk job on Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston since returning from nearly five years of Taliban captivity, could face life in prison.

The letter asked Trump to voluntarily appear, but Fidell said "if necessary, we would certainly make every effort to get him under oath" in court.

"Our consternation over his course of conduct has hardly been a secret," Fidell said of Trump. "He suggested a variety of forms of execution."